


"Diane Sounds Like a Chump"

by AdeleDazeem



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fingerfucking, Oral Sex, Princess Mechanic, Smut, getting over someone by getting under someone else, gratuitous country music references, honky tonk bars and tequila, look i just really love Raven Reyes my beautiful pansexual pyromaniac, oh god are those feelings?, there's drinking but they're not /drunk/ ya feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 03:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdeleDazeem/pseuds/AdeleDazeem
Summary: “You pick the time and the placeDon't know how much this hurtsI gave him my heart to breakNow I know he broke yours firstLyin' right there in my bedWhile he was lying to youBelieving the words that he saidHow could we be such fools?And all those nights that he's given to meI wish that I could give them back to you‘Diane,’ Cam, 2017---“Look. Apologies do zero good. They only help the apologizer. And besides, even if they did do any good -- you just said: you didn’t even know Finn was a two-timing bag of dicks. So.” Raven picks up her beer, clinking the bottom against the side of Clarke’s with more force than is strictly necessary. “To assholes,” she says with mock cheer and then takes a hearty swig.“To assholes,” Clarke echoes before taking her own swallow.





	"Diane Sounds Like a Chump"

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, the first time I really dive into smut it’s for a rarepair, so in case it’s trash, it will at least be minimally read trash. Ayo! 
> 
> (All mistakes are my own. The perils of being beta-less. Forsooth.)

Clarke meets Finn in the kind of unremarkable way that everyone outside of Hollywood and Nicholas Sparks novels meets: online. He has an easy frat boy charm about him. They meet for drinks. Drinks turn into ‘you up’s and the occasional dinner date. It’s easy -- exactly what Clarke wanted after she and her college girlfriend blew up. Finn is nice and not clingy and good enough in bed that Clarke doesn’t feel the need to go out and find another hook up buddy. She rolls with it.

Clarke doesn’t second guess any of it, until one morning they’re kissing goodbye at Finn’s front door and “oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me” rings out from the elevator bank.

Clarke wouldn’t necessarily be bothered by this: this is the city, everyone here has a sailor’s mouth and disregard for tact. Except Finn has frozen against her like a deer in headlights.

Clarke leans back and looks down the hallway. There, a woman roughly her age is standing having evidently just gotten off the elevator. She has a takeaway coffee cup in each hand and a mirthless smirk twisting her pretty mouth.

“You sonuva fucking bitch,” that mouth says and the woman is stalking towards them now. The stalking is no less stalk-ish even with the knee brace and almost imperceptible limp.

“Raven,” Finn says dumbly, still hanging halfway out of his door. “I uh- I can explain.”

The woman, whose name apparently is Raven, spits out a laugh. “Oh good. Because I am dying to know why my _boyfriend_  of six fucking years is kissing another woman goodbye at 7:15 in the morning on his front doorstep.”

“Oh my god.” Clarke whispers, horrified. It’s a lot to take in (at 7:15 in the morning, no less) but Clarke focuses on the most important piece of info: “‘ _boyfriend of six years_ ’?” she repeats, taking a large step back.

Finn, for his part, stammers, too shocked to even try for remorse.

“Um,” she starts to edge back down the hall. “Y’know, this seems like something you two might want to work out amongst yourselves. I’m gonna just… Leave this hallway and never return.” Raven pins Finn with a withering stare before turning to Clarke. Clarke tries not to shrink under the weight of those fiery brown eyes.

“Here. Take this,” Raven says and then thrusts one of the coffees into Clarke’s hand roughly. It’s still hot. _REYES!_ is scribbled large on the side. There’s a crudely drawn rocketship underneath it. “If you don’t, I can’t guarantee it’s not going in this idiot’s face.”

“Oh. Um. Thank you,” she says automatically and then points at said idiot still gaping in the doorway. “Finn, delete my number.” Then turns to the other girl. “Raven, was it? I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Clarke walks down the hall with as much pride as she can muster and jabs the elevator button repeatedly until it arrives. Finn is still stammering in his doorway as the doors slide shut.

Out on the street, Clarke dials her best friend and tosses the coffee in the first trash can she finds. “O, you are not going to believe what just happened.”

\---

It’s a few weeks later and Clarke can’t stop thinking about the scene in the hallway. It was the exact kind of messy bullshit she had hoped to avoid by keeping things casual. And yet… She can’t get Raven out of her head.

It doesn’t take a computer genius to find her. Clarke’s working on a bottle of wine when she does the logical thing in this day and age and types her name into the Facebook search bar. The only other ‘Raven Reyes’ in the area looks to be about twelve if the middle school dance picture and braces are anything to go by.

Clarke clicks back to the Raven Reyes who looks old enough to have voted in the last election and devours what little info there is on the woman. Her Education Section is stacked and lists several renowned universities, the third and final one here in the city. Other than that, the only things visible to non-friends are her cover photo (some no doubt very impressive piece of machinery), her quote (“I love the smell of rocket fuel in the morning”), and of course her profile picture (Raven saluting the camera with a wrench, smile stretched wide across her grease-streaked face). The last of which Clarke studies for longer than is strictly necessary for curiosity’s sake.

She takes a gulp of her wine, staring at that smile like she’s mesmerized. This wine must be stronger than she anticipated. And then, before she really can think about it further, she’s sending Raven a message that she isn’t even sure Raven will see since they’re not friends.

_'I feel terrible. Please let me buy you a drink. Or six.’_

It’s a whole week more before she gets a response. Clarke has already chalked it up as a lost cause. Which makes the new message icon all the more surprising when she opens Facebook on her lunch break.

 _' EastBound & Down. Thursday, _8:30pm. _Tequila.’_

Clarke responds immediately, typing out _'Six tequilas coming up.’_

The next day she sees the blue “read” icon has been checked. Raven doesn’t send another message, but Clarke takes it as acquiescence all the same.

\---

The bar is decidedly different from Clarke’s usual haunts. Eastbound & Down has neon big-name beer signs covering the walls and more wood paneling than any fire marshal could ever possibly approve of. It’s one of those dives that’s inexplicably smokey, even though the state legislature outlawed smoking indoors a decade ago. On her way from the door to the bar, Clarke has to sidestep an actual cowboy hat, and in the back corner, tucked behind a pool table and one of those hunting video games with the orange plastic shotguns is a honest to god jukebox. Stepping in from the east coast big city bustle to working-class watering hole is jarring.

Clarke made an effort to be early, in the hopes of having a moment to compose herself before whatever happens tonight happens. But, as she makes her way to the long, dark bar (more wood), she realizes that effort was for naught. Raven’s already seated at the bar, back to the door, saying something to the bartender that’s got him laughing as he dries a glass; Clarke’s only seen that dark brown ponytail once, but she doubts she’ll ever forget it.

Clarke pastes a smile onto her face. “Hey,” she says, stepping up to Raven and feeling like she’s interrupting something. _Again._

Raven, reacts smoothly. “And here is my much needed top-shelf tequila that I’ve been telling you about,” she says without looking at Clarke. “Four shots, my good man.”

She’s got a nearly empty bottle of beer in front of her, which she quickly kills when the bartender slides the shot glasses towards them. Raven’s already guiding the first one to her lips before Clarke has even set her purse down.

Sensing an implicit challenge, Clarke takes hers back to back and picks a lime wedge up from the bowl behind the bar as Raven slams her second glass down, bottoms up. The tart explosion as she bites into the slice is a welcome distraction from the burn snaking down her esophagus into her belly. She wants to cough; she doesn’t.

Raven looks at her then and Clarke feels her eyes burning into her like the tequila did. Clarke meets the gaze head-on. She has been girding herself for this since Tuesday night when Raven responded. It’s hard to prepare for uncharted territory, however. And that is exactly what this, getting drinks with your boyfriend’s girlfriend - or rather ex-boyfriend’s (maybe ex?)girlfriend, is: un-fucking-charted territory. Strangely enough, none of her grandmother’s etiquette classes covered this kind of social interaction.

Which is why when Raven lifts her hand, still staring into Clarke, Clarke is 80% sure she's about to get bitchslapped. Instead, Raven just flags the bartender back over. Raven doesn’t look away until he appears silently, collecting the small phalanx of empty glassware. “Thanks, Mike,” she says, ordering another beer and two more shots with a quick grin. And without a slur, Clarke notes. Either she’s seasoned in holding her alcohol, or she hadn’t gotten there too much sooner than Clarke.

She registers that both Mike and Raven are looking at her then. Mike, friendly and expectant, Raven, unreadable, but not openly hostile.

“Oh,” Clarke recovers. “Jack and coke, please.”

Mike sets to work on their drinks and Clarke pulls a stool out for herself. “So,” Clarke drags out the last letter and Raven lifts an eyebrow, daring Clarke to continue. There’s a gleam in Raven’s eye, and Clarke can’t decipher if its malevolence or amusement. The longer Raven watches her, the sharper the tension feels between them, Raven’s smirk ratcheting it up silently. She really should have used the ride over here to prepare something.

She’s given a brief reprieve when Mike brings their drinks over and then heads back to the far end of the bar where an NFL game is on.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke blurts before she loses her nerve. “Like, really sorry. _Horribly_  sorry. I had no idea he was, um, not single.”

But Raven is already shaking her head, picking up her third shot and throwing it back. She smacks the glass back onto the counter and turns to Clarke unceremoniously. “No.”

“No?” Clarke’s face screws up in confusion.

“No,” Raven repeats. “I’m not interested in apologies. Especially not from you.”

“Oh.”

“Look. Apologies do zero good. They only help the apologizer. And besides, even if they did do any good -- you just said: you didn’t even know Finn was a two-timing bag of dicks. So.” Raven picks up her beer, clinking the bottom against the side of Clarke’s with more force than is strictly necessary. “To assholes,” she says with mock cheer and then takes a hearty swig.

“To assholes,” Clarke echoes before taking her own swallow.

\---

The next couple of rounds teach Clarke two things: one, Raven can _drink_ , and two, Raven is hilarious. It might be the alcohol talking, but Clarke can’t remember the last time she laughed this hard with someone she’d barely met before. Raven has a slew of stories from her studies (a surprisingly high percentage of which involve explosions) which have tears streaming down Clarke’s face.

“Needless to say, my mom did not come to any more of my engineering banquets,” Raven finishes, smirking.

Clarke wipes her eyes, grateful she went with the waterproof mascara this evening and leans an elbow on the bar. Raven is looking at her over the top of a fresh beer and Clarke props herself onto her upturned palm. “I can’t decide if I’m sad we didn’t meet or sooner, or thankful I didn’t have you to distract me in college. Making it to the library was hard enough without exploding kegs and- what was it? Flaming deathball.”

Raven sits up, swinging her leg off the neighboring chair it had been propped up on, and leans forward, scandalized. The indignation might be more believable if there weren’t a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. The passion is no less enthralling, though, Clarke realizes as Raven sets off on an undeniably absurd argument that nontheless has Clarke leaning forward smiling. “Flaming Deathball is the national pastime drinking-age America has been waiting for. If I wasn’t afraid of being banned from the only bar this side of the river that doesn’t gouge you on drinks, I would show you right now.”

“Thanks for that,” Mike shouts from further down the bar without looking away from the football game.

“Damn the Man; always keeping us down,” Clarke yells, loud enough for Mike to hear her.

“At least I’m keeping your glasses filled in the process,” he retorts, eyes still turned to the screen.

“Hmm… The Man may have a point,” Raven supposes, raising her glass in a salute before taking a pull.

Clarke follows suit. “If you ever find a place not averse to a little flame-filled fun, you’ve got to invite me,” she says after lowering her drink, smile still on her face - really, her cheeks are beginning to hurt, this is kind of crazy.

It’s a throwaway request: easy, walking the line between flirty and joking. Not dissimilar to saying ‘when you’re famous, don’t forget me in your Oscar speech’ or some other far-fetched, unlikely to happen proposal. And yet. When Raven grins back, bottle still pressed to her bottom lip, there’s something in her eyes that makes Clarke actually believe her when she says “you got it, Princess.”

And yeah, they’re only talking about some frat-tastic flame-infested take on beer pong, but something inside Clarke still thrills at the idea.

Then, Raven’s eyes light up and she is leaning forward again, back into Clarke’s face. It’s so sudden and the gleeful look on her face is so abrupt it takes a second for Clarke to process the words Raven is saying, not just the way her lips are shaping around them.

“I have got a brilliant idea,” Raven is saying.

“Does it involve flames?”

“Only in a metaphorical sense. Here. Give me your phone.”

Clarke, understandably is hesitant. “Um…”

Raven just rolls her eyes, hand still outstretched. “Relax, the last thing I want to do is snoop through your stuff. I just want to take a picture.”

“A picture?” Clarke asks, bewildered. But she’s already reaching into her purse and digging for her phone.

“Yes. Of me and you. You and me. Both of us here. Together.”

Clarke’s already swiping up to get to her camera, ignoring her notifications and alerts (several of which are from a very concerned Octavia) when the implication clicks. She looks at Raven. “Oh, that is _good_ ,” she says returning the devious smile. “Instagram or Snapchat?”

Raven’s hopping her bar stool closer, dragging her beer along with her. “Whichever you think is best.”

Clarke mulls it over a second before deciding: “snapstory _and_  insta post - what's the point if you're not covering all the bases.”

"My thoughts exactly."

Raven salutes and then Clarke starts clicking away. They take a couple of shots with Raven’s arm slung over Clarke’s shoulder, a mischevious smile on Raven's face and Clarke blowing the camera a kiss, one of which they upload to Clarke’s snap. But, in Clarke’s humble opinion, the best picture has her planting a big smacking kiss on Raven’s cheek, while Raven guffaws into the camera. That one is posted to Instagram. Raven is already on her phone, commenting 3 fire emojis before Clarke puts hers back into her purse.

“Well done, team,” Raven says, glowing and smug as she looks down at the picture. “This is actually cute. Not that I’m at all surprised.”

“To teamwork,” Clarke clinks their glasses together and downs the rest of hers, still grinning.

“To teamwork,” Raven echoes boisterously. “And to fresh drinks. Come on, Mike!”

She doesn’t scoot her chair back, their thighs still touching beneath the bar top. Clarke notices,  ut doesn't mention it.

\---

They’ve switched to sipping fingers of whiskey. Raven is flicking peanut shells down the bar into an empty beer mug. Clarke would be impressed at her accuracy if she weren’t so distracted by the shape of her fingers. Raven has propped her leg back up on an empty chair and every once in a while, she drops a hand down to the knee with the brace and rubs, massaging the joint absentmindedly.

“What happened?” Clarke asks, motioning to the brace with her glass.

Raven doesn’t look up from the peanuts. “Short story: sportbikes and rain do not a good mix make.”

Clarke winces. “And the long story?”

Raven just shrugs, “Not nearly as mysterious sounding.”

Clarke hums at the quip, noting the studied nonchalance of the other girl’s face, the unwillingness to meet her eyes. She accepts the brush off.

She’s back to looking at Raven’s fingers playing with the peanut shells, when Raven stops her movements and cocks her head to the side. “What the fuck.”

“What?” Clarke’s eyes fight to refocus.

Raven ignores her. “Are you shitting me right now?” She swivels around to look at the back corner.

Clarke leans out to look too, keeps one hand gripping the edge of the bar so she doesn’t fall off her stool when she leans a little further. She doesn’t see anything except the same two guys playing pool that have been there all night. She squints. _Maybe Raven knows them?_

“What?” Clarke repeats again, still mystified.

Raven whirls around so fast it would have surprised Clarke even if she hadn’t been a couple of sheets to the wind. Her eyes are bright - _no, alight_ Clarke corrects. “Did you put this fucking song on?”

Rather than sounding like a broken record and saying ‘what’ for the third time in as many seconds, Clarke furrows her brow and cocks her head too, tunes into the song playing through the speakers. It’s been a mix of country all night. Not Clarke’s usual bag, so she hasn’t paid too much attention to it.

_‘You pick the time and the place_  
_Don't know how much this hurts_  
_I gave him my heart to break_  
_Now I know he broke yours first’_

She jerks her head back as if Raven had just thrown a drink at her. “What the fuck is this?”

“Irony.” Raven offers with a loud, honest laugh. “I’ll be fucking damned,” she chuckles to herself, listening to the song for a few beats more.

“Come on, Diane,” Raven says, pulling Clarke up with her by the hand.

Clarke laughs. “I’m no country expert, but wouldn’t _you_  be Diane?”

Rather than continuing to the jukebox, Raven lurches to a stop so abruptly Clarke careens into her. The tequila has significantly dulled Clarke’s reaction time and she finds herself offhandedly grateful she didn’t drive tonight. Raven’s hand slides from her own, and Clarke is surprised when it lands on her hip, steadying her rather than pushing her off.

“‘You can blame me if it helps. That's what a good wife would do,’” Raven’s still grinning, and Clarke struggles to look up from it as Raven sings along to the song before breaking off to declare, “Diane sounds like a chump. Hard pass for me.”

“Same,” Clarke grins back and tugs them back towards the jukebox. “I think I know just the remedy.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Don’t tell me you know country music, Princess,” Raven razzes when Clarke pushes her hands back from the buttons and assumes control of the jukebox.

“You might be surprised what I know, Reyes,” Clarke quips back.

Raven’s eyes flash, and Clarke is certain they flick down to her lips. “As long as it’s not Dolly Parton’s Jolene, please surprise away.”

She flips through several pages, half reading the names and titles, half listening to Raven lazily talk trash to the two men at the pool table. She’s leaning comfortably against the jukebox next to Clarke, arms crossed loosely under her chest, facing the guys and lobbing jokes back and forth. Her side is pressed to Clarke’s, warm and firm, and Clarke almost skips the song she’s been looking for, she’s so distracted by the easy, intoxicating presence next to hers. She shakes her head and inputs the reference number and presses play.

Raven breaks off mid-joke to turn her head towards Clarke’s when the familiar chords ring out followed by ‘lets go, girls,’ from the unmistakable Shania Twain. Raven lets out another one of those loud, clear laughs and Clarke grins smugly back. Too proud of being the cause of that laugh to be self-conscious about the middle school song choice.

“Country Pop is still Country. What kind of princess would I be if I didn’t know the Queen of it?”

Raven laughs again and pushes off from the jukebox, tugging at Clarke’s hand again. “Touché.” She twirls Clarke into a surprisingly deft spin before pulling her back in. The room around them keeps spinning, but Raven’s eyes remain locked on Clarke’s face, and Clarke is grateful for Raven’s hand, steady on her lower back.

“Hey, Raven?”

“Yeah?”

Clarke looks at Raven, watches as she sways infinitesimally closer. There’s a strand of hair that’s fallen loose from Raven’s ponytail, and Clarke can see all too clearly a universe wherein she reaches up and tucks it behind her ear, wherein she can feel the little intake of breath against her own lips when her palm brushes against this beautiful woman’s cheek on it’s path, wherein this beautiful woman meets her halfway and they kiss, right there in the bar, caught in the little space between the jukebox and the heavy wooden tables. Clarke sees it all with the dazzling intensity of a car’s headlights flashing through a windowpane.

But then the boys cheer at the football game, the chorus kicks in on the crappy speakers behind them, and they’re back in this universe. The universe wherein this beautiful woman is Raven, the woman who only found out her longtime boyfriend has been cheating on her (with _Clarke_ ) no more than a calendar month ago.

So when she grabs Raven’s hands, it’s to spin them out, and instead of saying something earnest and out of place like ‘anyone who lets you go is an idiot’ or ‘I’d pick you first’ she yells out,  “I feel like a woman!” It's only slightly out of tune from the enthusiasm and volume. 

Clarke is bold and assertive when it comes to most thing, relationships included. But she's not delusional. Raven has been friendly and smiled at her all night, even flirted here and there, but that doesn’t change the fact that she just crash landed out of a serious relationship, longer than any Clarke’s been in, and maybe Raven doesn’t subscribe to the age-old belief of getting over someone by getting under someone else, let alone that someone else being the lady your ex cheated on you with.

So, the song ends and they head back to the bar. The alarm is going off on Clarke’s phone, heralding half past midnight. Which means that one, she needs to take her birth control and two, she should have left 30 minutes ago, if she was planning on being semi-functioning tomorrow at work. She groans.

Raven sidles up behind her. “Past pumpkin time?”

Clarke pouts. Despite her misgivings, she isn’t ready to leave this bar or this girl. “Unfortunately. What’s a responsible 9-5 Princess to do?”

“I’m a little foggy on fairy tales, but I think the answer is ‘call an uber’?” Raven suggests, leaning next to her and motioning to Mike to close out.

“I always forget that part of the story.”

“You and Disney both.”

They settle up, Raven even offering to cover everything but the six tequila shots. Clarke declines, says drinks were her idea, but the offer still warms her unreasonably. Raven compromises by unceremoniously stuffing a couple of twenties in the cowboy boot serving as the tip jar. She’s shrugging on her coat and following Clarke to the door, telling the guys ‘later,’ before Clarke even realizes she’s leaving too.

“You don’t have to--” Clarke starts, feeling bad for possibly cutting Raven’s evening short.

Raven’s just waves her off. “I shoulda bounced a while ago,” she says, already pulling her phone out, presumably to call her own lift. “I have a lab in the morning and the freshmeat have been unusually bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Wouldn’t want to sleep through any chances to break out the fire extinguisher.”

It’s a small admission, quickly covered by Raven’s deluge of humor. But it still sends Clarke reeling. Clarke lowers her phone, ride home forgotten. They’re well on their way to their thirties and, still, a thrill shoots through her at the thought of Raven staying out late. For her. Or, at least for alcohol. Clarke feels like she’s in high school, standing outside of the gymnasium after the school dance, and her crush has just admitted that they’d been wanting to dance the slow song with her.

Raven looks up when Clarke still hasn’t said anything and catches Clarke staring at her, probably looking like the human equivalent of the heart-eyes emoji.

“What?” Raven asks, a little grin on her face when Clarke remains silent. “That surprised I advocate lab safety?”

Rather than divulge all of the cliche teen Americana similes whirling through her brain, she chooses an easy truth, “You’re gorgeous.”

“Huh. Is that why you’ve been staring at me all night long?”

“That. And a few other reasons,” Clarke admits without looking away.

It’s just tipping from Fall into Winter and the temperature has dropped enough that Clarke can see Raven’s breath fogging up into a thin cloud between them. Clarke wraps her arms around herself to ward off the chill.

“Care to share them with the class?”

“I think you might be able to guess a few.”

“That I had beer foam on my face?”

“That,” Clarke agrees, then goes for broke. “And-- I wondered how anyone could be dumb enough to let you go. I figured if I kept watching, I might see why. But I never did.”

Raven blinks hard, stares at her, eyebrows furrowed, for what seems like an eternity before visibly exhaling a plume of white condensation. She takes a step towards Clarke so they’re facing each other when she asks, “You said you had a ‘few’ reasons. What were the others?” Raven’s voice is different, lower, like it’s scraping across gravel on its way out.

It’s dark out, the streetlight dim and half a block away at the corner. Clarke can’t quite see the look in Raven’s eye. She takes a breath and lifts her chin, “I wondered what it would be like to kiss you.”

“And the other?” Raven asks, voice still low in her throat, as she takes a step closer.

“And-- I wondered what you would do if I did. If you would slap me before I got close. Or if you would slap me after.”

“Or I could kiss you.”

“Or you could kiss me,” Clarke echoes.

“I don’t know what they teach in Fine Arts,” Raven is right in front of her now; she hasn’t stopped advancing. It forces Clarke to step backward. “But in science, when you’re met with an unknown, you test it.” Clarke’s back hits the wall. Raven steps right up into her space, crowding her against the brick.

“Is this some long-con trap to slap me?”

“Why don’t you find out?” Raven breathes, breath warm on Clarke’s mouth.

Clarke closes the admittedly narrow gap between their lips, reaching up to cup the jawline she’s been tracing with her eyes for the better part of the evening. Whether Raven shivers at the coldness of her fingers or the sensation of Clarke biting her plush bottom lip, the blonde isn’t sure. Raven groans into the kiss, all but melting into Clarke’s body. Raven licks into her mouth and then Clarke’s the one moaning into the kiss.

It’s sloppy. The alcohol and lust ramping off one another, dulling their coordination. Their teeth click at one point — something Clarke hasn’t had happen since her uni days. But what they may lack in finesse, making out against the dingy exterior of a dixie dive bar, they more than make up for in enthusiasm.

Clarke has both arms around Raven’s neck now, their legs slotted together as Raven’s hips keep her in place. One of Raven’s surprisingly warm hands is pressed to the skin of her hip where it’s sneaked under the tail of Clarke’s shirt. Raven begins to work her way over to Clarke’s ear — an absurdly sensitive area, telegraphed by the way she’s arching off the wall and into Raven. Raven gives her a little nip and Clarke’s hips twitch unmistakably against her own.

“Wanna get outta here?” Clarke manages, mind still reeling from the surprising change of events. Not that she’s complaining. In the least bit.

“I thought you’d never fucking ask,” Raven answers, the words rough against the shell of Clarke’s ear.

Yeah. Definitely not complaining.

\---

Raven, it turns out, actually only lives a handful of blocks away. So they forgo the rideshare apps and decide to walk. Clarke isn’t sure what to do with her hands at first (she has a few ideas, but none of them are appropriate for walking home on a public sidewalk), but then Raven hooks her arm through Clarke’s and steers them in the right direction, their hands crammed in their own jacket pockets for warmth.

They’re stopped at a light, waiting for the walk signal, and Raven is telling Clarke about the project she’s helping another Ph.D. student with, and Clarke isn’t sure what comes over her but she leans in and kisses Raven on the cheek mid-sentence. She wants to take it back almost immediately, unsure how the other woman has taken the gesture. It was meant to be playful, but in the split second as she pulls back, smiling dopily at the dark-haired woman, Clarke’s panicked brain kicks into overthinking, twisting the action into an overt display of comfortable affection. An extension of a very specific type of relaxed intimacy. Like something she would have done to her last serious significant other, but deep, deep into the relationship. It’s just a kiss on the cheek. But to Clarke, nervous of overstepping Raven’s unknown, but probably still smarting, boundaries, or skewing this strange balance they somehow managed to create over the course of the last four hours, it plays like handing over the Science and Technology Section of the Times at the breakfast table without having to be asked.

Blessedly, rather than pull back, Raven just grins, cutting her eyes over to Clarke mischievously. “You missed.”

All of Clarke’s nerves evaporate and she regains her footing. ”Did I?”

“You did. Which now has me wondering: Should I be worried about your hand-eye-mouth coordination?”

The light has since changed and by this point and they’ve made it to the other side of the crosswalk. Clarke takes the opportunity to fist the front of Raven’s bomber jacket and pull her into a bruising kiss.

“Satisfied?” Clarke asks against Raven’s lips.

“For now,” Raven says, but the coyness of her statement is belied by the size of her pupils which are almost eclipsing the brown of her irises even in the shine of the intersection street light.

“Good,” Clarke husks, pulling her in for one more kiss. “Now take me home.”

Raven grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

\---

By the time Raven unlocks her door and shows Clarke in with a flourish the tension between them has ratcheted up to an almost unbearable degree. Clarke had kept her lips to herself for the remainder of the walk. An impressive show of self-control when every time Raven looked at her, bottom lip tucked between her teeth, Clarke got the distinct impression she is being mentally undressed.

So, when Raven opens the door and steps back against it to let Clarke pass into the living room, Clarke takes special care to brush her chest against the other woman’s. Clarke has decided to let Raven take the lead on this endeavor. She’s the one who just underwent the break up from Reality tv hell. So Clarke holds back and waits for Raven to make the first move.

She doesn’t have to wait long.

Raven catches Clarke’s hand and pulls her back against her. Now it’s Raven’s turn to have her hands in Clarke’s hair, with Clarke’s already mapping the back of her shirt under her jacket as they kiss against the still open door.

Raven’s lips are like something out of a romance novel. The shape and puffiness would drive any plastic surgeon wild with envy. When Clarke pulls back for air, they’re bruised. “Great place you have,” she says without looking up. Raven grins, something Clarke is beginning to discover is the default expression on the other woman’s face, and Clarke can’t decide which she likes more: Raven’s lips smirking at her or Raven’s lips kissing her.

“Thanks, the landlord picked the door out himself.”

“He’s got good taste.”

“If you’re that wild about it, I could give you a tour of the amenities, maybe even show you the parking garage--”

Clarke kisses her again, feeling the smile stretch against her lips. “Maybe another time,” she says between kisses. “For now I’ll settle for a tour of the bedroom.”

“Coming right up, Princess.”

Raven all but hustles them into the bedroom, abandoning jackets and boots and purses along the way. It’s going to be a bitch to find them in the morning, but Clarke can’t be bothered to care, mind too busy melting over the feel of Raven’s tongue against her own and her warm, callused hands sliding up her ribcage, pulling her top with it. Clarke doesn’t even see which way the shirt is thrown. Priorities.

Raven’s got the back of her knees pressed against the mattress before she even registers they’re in the bedroom. Clarke sits down but keeps Raven standing between her knees. Raven pulls her shirt off and Clarke tries not to gape at all the tan skin on display six inches from her face. She grabs Raven’s belt and tugs her closer, presses an open mouth kiss to the abs before her. Raven’s skin jumps underneath her lips as she sucks in a breath, her hands flying to Clarke’s hair again, holding her close. Clarke undoes Raven’s belt buckle, dragging her mouth down to where her hands are now unbuttoning her jeans and teasing down her zipper.

“Fuck,” Raven says hoarsely as Clarke drags her teeth over the waistband of her now exposed panties.

“Getting there,” Clarke murmurs against warm skin.

“Wish we’d get there a bit faster,” Raven grunts.

Clarke grins, shaking her head at the other woman’s impatience. She turns her attention to the bulky brace on Raven’s knee, which upon closer inspection is not nearly as complicated as she had first thought.

“Oh,” Raven sounds genuinely surprised. “You don’t…”

Clarke stills her fingers over the top strap of the brace and looks up at Raven’s face. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, no,” Raven reassures, shaking her head. Her hand is still firmly gripping Clarke’s shoulder.

“Do you not want me to?”

Raven has her lip caught firmly between her teeth. She looks like she is weighing her options.

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t.” Clarke offers easily. “But…” She leans forward to kiss the warm skin of Raven’s hip, looks up at her through her eyelashes as she does. “It doesn't bother me.”

“O-okay,” Raven acquiesces, somewhat distracted by the feel of Clarke’s mouth so close to where she wants it to be.

Clarke grins against her hip, giving it another quick kiss before refocusing on the brace. It’s similar enough to the ones she saw during her short tenure with her college’s sports medicine department; all it takes is unhooking the quick-release straps and then Clarke is leaning to the side to carefully place the brace on the ground next to Raven’s shirt, before turning back to Raven’s pants.  
She slips the tight pants down Raven’s hips, taking extra care to drag her palms along the toned muscles of her thighs. Raven steps out of her jeans once they’ve pooled around her ankles, then, in the same move, shoves Clarke back onto the mattress, crawling up after her. Clarke realizes two things as Raven sets to work pulling off her own dark jeans: one, Raven’s arms look phenomenal in this position, and two, Raven is impatient.

“Why couldn’t you have worn a skirt?” Raven mutters as she works to remove the blonde’s painted on jeans.

“Well,” Clarke lifts her hips to help, lends her own hands to the process. “Had I known I was getting lucky, I might have. If only your cryptic message had offered some insight into tonight’s plans...”

“Next time, I’ll be more straightforward,” Raven grouses good-naturedly. “Diagrams, charts, detailed notes. The works.” When she finally tugs them off, the force nearly bowling her back off the bed, Raven looks downright triumphant. Clarke can’t help the laugh that bubbles up.

The laugh dies in her throat as Raven undoes her own bra, dropping it over the side of the bed before slinking up Clarke’s body. Clarke tucks her lower lip between her teeth and tangles a hand in Raven’s hair, pulling her into a heated kiss. Raven drapes her body over Clarke’s, molding against her and pulling a moan from Clarke’s mouth at the feel of Raven’s already hard nipples rubbing against her still covered boobs. Then, Raven’s slotting their thighs together and Clarke would be swearing like a sailor at how good this feels -- the wet heat of Raven’s mouth, mirrored in the feel of her center pressing against her thigh -- if her tongue weren’t busy cataloging the taste of Raven’s own.

Raven’s got one hand braced beside Clarke’s head, the other fumbling with the clasp of Clarke’s bra. Clarke palms Raven’s breast, thumb flicking over her nipple, and Raven arches into her palm, the hand at Clarke’s back momentarily stalling out. Clarke exploits the moment of weakness and flips them over. Raven looks dazed beneath her as she straddles her hips. Clarke smiles cheekily. Raven surges upwards, hands going to Clarke’s back, as she kisses the smile off of her face. It’s filthy, all tongue and open panting mouths, and Clarke doesn’t even realize Raven’s slid her bra off until she has her hands on her chest, rough calluses scraping against her nipples in the most surprisingly delicious way. Clarke answers by grinding down into her lap.

Raven drags a hand down her side, causing a shiver to trip down Clarke’s spine. She grips Clarke’s hip, fingertips just dipping below the waistband of her panties, before sliding around to grip her ass. Heat pools in the pit of Clarke’s stomach. Clarke winds her fingers in the length of Raven’s ponytail, gives it an experimental tug, tipping Raven’s head back, exposing her neck. Raven’s eyes are dilated, pupils blown wide. Their chests are pressed against each other, skin sliding together as they pant heavily. Clarke can’t remember the last time she was this worked up from kissing. If the foreplay is this good, she can’t wait for the main event.

Clarke’s eyes trace over the pout of Raven’s lips, the sharp angle of her jaw, and the long column of her throat, where a flush is already starting to spread from her chest. Clarke allows herself to lean down and taste it, presses her mouth to Raven’s strong pulse for a moment before pulling back and meeting Raven’s gaze again.

She shifts her hand up to the hair tie keeping Raven’s now messy ponytail up. “May I?”

“Whatever you want, Princess.”

“Good answer,” Clarke smirks and undoes her ponytail, slipping the elastic onto her own wrist, careful not to pull her long dark hair in the process. There’s just a slight kink in it from being up in the ponytail. It’s beautiful. Clarke runs her hands through it several times more before placing her hand on Raven’s collarbone and pushing her to lay back. Her hair fans out on the pillow like something in a magazine.

From her perch, straddling Raven’s thighs, Clarke has the perfect view. Their bodies are a study in antithesis. Clarke is soft and supple where Raven is slim and leonine. Soft curves against firm muscles. Skin and eyes and hair: light versus dark. Clarke revels in the contrasts.

“I know I said this earlier, but fuck you are gorgeous.”

Raven flexes her hands on Clarke’s hips, her own hips wriggling noticeably beneath. Clarke takes it as her cue. She leans down and gets to work making her way down Raven’s body. She nips at her breasts before swirling a tongue around a nipple, rolling the other between thumb and forefinger. She can feel the resulting moan vibrating out from Raven’s chest. It’s intoxicating, is what it is. Clarke lightly drags the edge of her teeth up the stiff peak and Raven swears above her. Clarke flicks her eyes up to see Raven’s smoldering gaze already focused on her. She switches to the other breast, maintaining eye contact as she pays it similar attention. Nails scratch down Raven’s abs, foreshadowing her descent.

Clarke has Raven arching into her mouth before she works her way lower. There will no doubt be marks in the morning, scattered over the swell of her breasts. She kisses the quivering, flat expanse of her stomach, dips her tongue into the shallow divot of her bellybutton, and then much to Raven’s displeasure, merely skims over the already dampening front of her panties.

“You’re killing me, Princess,” Raven huffs impatiently as Clarke massages the tense muscles of her thighs, fingers rubbing the indentions the brace left behind.

Clarke ignores Raven’s words, instead focusing intently on the way she writhes beneath her lips as she blazes a trail down the inside of her thigh, sucking and nipping at the tender skin. “Seriously,” Clarke says reverently against the pale, corded scar where it snakes out of sight under her knee, “so fucking gorgeous.”

“I don’t suppose that’s some sort of a kink of yours, huh?” Raven jokes, but her voice is breathless, her chest heaving.

“What?” Clarke answers with a lazy smile, reaching up to hook her fingers in Raven’s panties. “Sexy naked girls?”

“That's sweet, but I'm technically not naked.”

“Well then, why don’t we change that?”

“I thought you’d never fucking ask.”

Clarke tugs the fabric down Raven’s long legs and over, tossing it away to some forgotten recess of the room. She takes the opportunity to twist Raven’s hair tie up into her own hair, pulling her blonde hair up into a quick bun before moving back between those legs, hooking Raven’s uninjured knee over her shoulder as she goes. She pauses to press a single, chaste kiss into the soft spot where Raven’s thigh joins her pelvis. Raven huffs. Clarke can feel her hand tugging, impatient, in her hair. She shifts her mouth an inch to the right, hovers for a second, breathing hotly over Raven’s damp center, and then dives in. She drags the flat of her tongue from the bottom up and hooks an arm over the leg on her shoulder to keep the woman beneath her still. The broad slow stroke ends in a flourish of a swirl around Raven’s clit.

“Fuck,” Raven enunciates clearly, paying special attention to emphasize the hard k.

Clarke swipes back down, hardening her tongue for a moment to dip into her opening, before licking back up. Clarke focuses on Raven’s reactions as she licks along her folds. She catalogs each sharp inhalation and sigh, paying special attention to the areas to the areas and techniques that have her arching off the bed into Clarke’s mouth.

Clarke reaches up to Raven’s heaving chest and cups her breast, pinching at the nipple as she sucks hard on her clit. Raven is clutching tightly to Clarke’s hair with one hand and the bedspread with the other. Clarke teases her opening with a finger. Raven tips her head back and moans.

“Yeah?” Clarke looks up at Raven through eyelashes, indecent smirk playing across her glistening lips.

“Yeah,” Raven grunts, bucking her hips down, searching for contact.

Clarke runs two fingers through Raven’s wet center, then presses into her to the knuckle.  
“Fuck,” Clarke groans at the wet heat engulfing her digits. Raven moans in response.

Clarke withdraws her fingers, then on the upswing, curls them. The resulting sensation has Raven gasping into the pillow, “God, _yeah_.”

Clarke sets up a rhythm, pistoning her fingers to meet the brunette’s specifications of ‘faster,’ ‘deeper,’ ‘fuck just like that.’ At Raven’s breathless, ‘more,’ Clarke slides a third finger into her and fastens her mouth back to Raven’s clit.

“Jesus, Clarke,” Raven moans from above. The sound of her name, dripping in pleasure, tightens the knot in Clarke’s belly. She moans against the bundle of nerves, sending vibrations straight to Raven’s core. She grinds down against the bed for some momentary relief, the shock waves causing her fingers to stutter for a moment.

She fucks her harder after that, Raven’s heel pressing tight into her shoulder blade as the beautiful muscles of her body tighten, tugging her in closer. She can tell Raven is close by the breathless puffs of air, no longer able to string letters together to form even the most basic of swears.

Raven is dripping down Clarke’s wrist when Clarke looks back up at her. She could stay here all night, between Raven’s legs, Raven against her mouth, Raven wrapped tight, pulsing around her fingers. “Rey,” she says, voice pitched low. “Look at me,” she commands with a purposeful curl of her fingers.

The other woman acquiesces, though her eyes are unfocused when they meet Clarke’s.

“I want you looking at me when you cum.” Then she levers her fingers, scissoring them inside, pressing out against the tight, slick channel of Raven’s cunt. She keeps her eyes on Raven’s face -- her dark hair wild across the pillow, mouth parted in a surprising silent scream, eyes black with pleasure -- as she licks back and forth across her clit, tongue firm and louche in its movements.

Raven dissolves around her fingers. Shattering from the center out. There’s probably some scientific process that Raven no doubt knows that could describe the action as she cums, but Clarke can really only think of one word: mesmerizing.

Raven is shaking, the shock waves rolling through her in time with the convulsions of her center around Clarke’s fingers, pulling her in. Clarke has to hold the other woman’s hips down to keep from being bucked off. She coaxes her through the orgasm, doesn’t withdraw her fingers until Raven is pushing her back from the over-stimulated nerves. Clarke wipes her fingers off absentmindedly on her the sheet and switches to laying open-mouthed kisses to the quivering thigh still hooked over her shoulder.

She’s just sucked a selfish hickey high on the inside of Raven’s leg when the other woman reaches down and pulls her up. “Come here,” Raven says, a smirk covering the post-orgasm shakiness.

Clarke slithers up the brunette’s body and props herself up on the pillows beside her. She makes to wipe off her mouth and chin, still glistening with Raven, but she’s pulled her into a kiss before she can. Raven tilts her chin and swipes her tongue into Clarke’s mouth, moaning at the taste of her on the blonde’s tongue.

“Damn, I taste good on you,” Raven says cockily before pulling her in for another lazy, salacious kiss.

Clarke can only agree.

Raven catches her breath and then she’s turning towards Clarke, pressing her length against her side. “What do you want?” Raven asks traces of her orgasm still clinging to her voice, pitching it low, as she runs her fingertips along the midline of Clarke’s body, from the valley between her breast to beneath her belly button and back up again. Heat radiates outwards from her touch. “Fingers? Mouth?”

Clarke is on her back now; Raven has a scarred leg thrown over her own, pressing her still wet center to Clarke’s hipbone. Clarke can feel her heartbeat pulsing in her toes.

“Fingers,” Clarke says decisively as said fingers reach the apogee of their path, just brushing against the damp blonde curls at the apex of her thighs. She’s dying to know what those calluses feel like inside her, swiping against her most sensitive parts. The thought has her canting her hips wantonly. “I want your fingers inside of me,” she pleads. Over-eagerness be damned.

Raven’s mouth is against the side of her throat, and her hot breath tickles the skin below her ear when she responds, “Whatever the princess wants...” She snakes her fingers lower, rifling through the coarse, clipped hair before dipping into the wet heat of Clarke’s center. “Fuck, you’re so wet,” Raven moans against her ear, dragging her fingers back and forth to emphasize her point.

And it’s true. Clarke is really fucking wet. So wet, she might be embarrassed if Raven didn’t sound like she was so into it. Which leads Clarke to her next discovery: Raven is a talker. “God, you feel so fucking good,” Raven says as she easily slips two fingers into Clarke’s soaked center. Clarke is really fucking into it.

Raven’s obscene whispers pouring directly into her ear, coupled with the feel of her fingers (three now) hooking inside of her as she slowly grinds her own cunt against Clarke’s hipbone soon has Clarke all but whiting out from the sensations. It’s a lot to take in all at once. Her nerve endings are fried and she can feel her vision going fuzzy around the edges as Raven husks, “Fuck, Clarke--” And then she doesn’t even hear whatever Raven says next because at the same time Raven swipes a thumb over Clarke’s clit, and Clarke is cumming _hard_.

Watching Raven cum around her fingers, hips stuttering against her mouth, had ramped her up, left her feeling like she was teetering on the precipice before Raven had even properly touched her. Now, with Raven inside and all around her, she goes flying. She vaguely is aware of Raven still muttering indecently into her ears, but the whole of her existence seems to be centered on the fingers still fucking her mercilessly, the thumb pressed to her clit, sparking her off into another orgasm.

“Wow,” Clarke says once her lungs have re-learned how to breathe. Thankfully, Raven has removed her hand from the apex of her thighs, instead placing it on her hip, fingers sticky wet. Clarke shudders. She feels like a livewire still. Even after the second orgasm, her body feels like it’s just waiting for a catalyst to set it alight all over again.

“That was really fucking hot,” Raven says, nosing the patch of skin beneath Clarke’s ear. “Do you think you can go again?”

“Can you?” Clarke already knows the answer. She can feel Raven’s center pulsing against her the outside of her hip.

“Thought you’d never fucking ask.”

Clarke rolls Raven onto her back. The brunette huffs a little at being topped again, but the disapproval is short lived when Clarke straddles her thigh, pressing her dripping center against the smooth muscle. “I want to ride your thigh, while I fuck you on my fingers. Cool with you?”

“I like the way you think, Princess.”

\---

The sun isn’t even up when she slips out of Raven’s apartment the next morning. The two of them had only passed out an hour or so before she’s closing the door behind herself. She needs to get home and shower and guzzle some herculean strength coffee. Work is going to be hell today, but as she waits for her Uber on the sidewalk, she can’t help but grin. Totally worth it.

\---

Raven wakes to her own alarm half an hour later, her muscles aching, but in a good way. Her phone is plugged into the charger on her bedside table, something she is almost certain she did not do last night. There’s a glass of water and note next to it:

_Thanks for not slapping me._  
_\- Clarke_  
_(617) 804-6667_

She flops back onto the bed with a laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I think it goes without saying, that while in this fic that is Clarke Griffin's phone number, sadly here in the real world it is not. Please do not call it asking for a good time, because I do not know to WHOM it belongs, having just made it up.


End file.
